DeAnne Smith: Ballsy
Winners At Life @ The Tuxedo Cat – Attic
6:15pm, Sun 7 Mar 2010
Dye Young / Stay Pretty ran a little long, so by the time I’d dashed down the five (was it five or seven? I bloody well should know, because I climbed them often enough) sets of stairs and up into the Attic, DeAnne Smith had already taken to the stage. And straight away I could see the progression in her act – she was holding her ukelele, strumming gently away, verbally engaging someone at the front of a pretty full house. Just as I sat down, they reached some form of agreement, and she invoked one of the Rules of the Show, and announced she would henceforth be starting the show again.
O-kay. I was left wondering what other Rules I’d missed out on.
There were no more Rule callbacks, but there was plenty of Smith’s trademark slightly-awkward delivery. But, as the crowds I’ve seen at her shows grow, she seems to become more confident; and this performance was almost all completely new (to me, anyway) material, including a phenomenal story about being sexually assaulted by a midget. The ukelele gets trotted out to break things up, her songs are twee and delightful yet bordering on crude, and she managed to get a “moo” and “yeah” chant going. In fact, perhaps the only mis-step in proceedings was her quest for a catch-phrase; seeing a diminutive, skinny lesbian yell “tell it to my balls” whilst framing her groin is funny once, but as it is repeatedly called back the chuckles diminish real quick.
It’s a real treat when you can follow the growth of a comedian over the years and, though her growing fan-base (which, paradoxically, I hope that she builds upon) takes her away from the intimate venues that I will always associate with her, I still love DeAnne Smith; she’s a genuinely creative comic with a unique style and presentation.